Old Port Adelaide

OLD PORT ADELAIDE

EARLY DAYS OF ALBERTON.

(By A. T. Saunders).

10 February 1914

In an examination of the papers of an old Portonian, who recently died in his 90th year, there was found a conveyance of block 69, "Albert Town," now called Alberton, from John Parsons, of "Albert Town" licensed victualler, to George Appleton, of "Albert Town," laborer, for the sum of £10. How well I remember Parsons' Coromandel Hotel, on the front of which was affixed the model of a man-of-war, presumably the Coromandel, with her guns run out and ready for action. John Parsons was a carpenter on a warship, if I remember aright, and that ship model was afterwards moved to the Australia's Pride, Port Adelaide. Parsons meantime keeping the Shipwrights' Arms, Alberton. 

In the forties of last century Port Adelaide was very loyal, and in commemoration of the marriage of the Queen and Prince Albert the twin townships of Queenstown, in which I was born, and Albert Town, were named. Albert Town, belonged to the South Australian Company and was irregularly laid out.

Queenstown was regularly laid out, but on a strictly commercial basis. Every foot was sold, and no reserves or open spaces were dedicated to the public, but in Alberton there were and still are several squares. The opening of the new port in 1840 caused considerable settlement in Albert Town and several hotels were built there. The Albert Hotel, a white two storey place, afterwards owned by Captain Simpson and dwelt in, after being closed as an hotel by Mr. John Neill. 

The Coromandel, before mentioned the Shipwrights' arms, opposite Mr. Leslie's school, and the British Standard kept by that fine old character, Ben Mockridge, who was also a man-o'-war carpenter, and a clever tradesman, who built a large part of the Port Adelaide wharfs. Long before water was piped to Port Adelaide Mockridge had a nice house in Alberton, and, wonder of wonders, a fountain, which at times spouted real water. He also had an extensive aviary, in which were pheasants and other rare and showy birds. Perchance the pheasants were some of those, or their progeny, imported by W. S. Whittington in the brig New Holland, or that mechanical and financial failure, the steamer Courier. Mockridge had been in the Mediterranean when Navarino was fought, and as a boy listened with avidity to his yarns of that period. 

Strange to say, there was no hotel in Queenstown, which was a reserved and aristocratic, suburb to Port Adelaide. At the moment I think there is only one hotel in Queenstown, the Prince of Wales, and that was licensed in my recollection, having previously been a general store. 

Albert Town was a sort of Alsatia, inhabited to a large extent by fishermen, whose nets and tin pots were a feature of the landscape. The Woolmans, from Heligoland, Mazeys, Lillias, Bamptons, and Whites were fisher families. It should be remembered that Alberton was the first dry land from Port Adelaide, which latter, and Portland Estate, were built on a swamp from which the water was more or less kept out by mud banks. I saw both Portland Estate and Port Adelaide inundated owing to the breaking of the banks, the first in November, 1859, and the second in 1865.

Sandhill Disasters.

To return to the old deed. Lot 69 was about 50 ft. by 260 ft. to St. Georges place and Divitt-place. John Parsons sold it to George Appleton for £10, and George Appleton declared that "no woman who shall become his widow shall be entitled to dower out of the said hereditaments," I wonder what that means, and why it was put into the deed. The signature of John Parsons is witnessed by Frederick Wicksteed. G. H. Barnard being deputy registrar. When this was sold and when I was a boy, sand was a nuisance in Alberton and Queenstown in many places. In some remote geological ages Alberton and Queenstown were the beach of a large sea which had piled up sandhills for several miles from where and a little beyond the Alberton railway-station now is, to the old Port-road and the Port River. When the road was being made from Alberton to the Port, and after drags going to the Port empty for back loading were made to carry a load of sand to the Port to fill in the holes. Now the sand is valuable, and the few sand-hills are being rapidly used for building purposes. 

The wind played curious pranks with the sand. I remember a brick cottage, belonging to Widow Munro, in Queenstown, was overwhelmed and buried by a sandhill, and for years was out of sight. When the sand was required it was removed, and the buried cottage was again inhabited. At the Semaphore a curious affair occurred. One Sunday afternoon a boy named Ghrimes [see letter below], of 8 or 10 years of age, left his home for Sunday-school, and was never seen alive afterwards. The whole country was scoured; his photograph was circulated; a reward was offered, without result. Years afterwards, when he had been forgotten, the wind shifted a sand-hill, and the body of the boy was found standing upright in the sand. He had gone to the top of a sandhill, the lee side of which was smooth owing to the sand's gradual advance, and had, boy-like, slid down the smooth face of the hill, thus disturbing the dry sand, which had fallen upon and smothered him. This boy's father had been steward of the ship Yatala, if I remember aright, and had been accidentally shot in the knee. He afterwards kept an hotel in Glanville.

A Regatta at the Port.

I recently saw a solid silver cup which I remember seeing 50 years ago. It is inscribed:

Port Adelaide, Regatta.
Prize Cup. First-class Sailing Boat
Won by the schooner Red Jacket.
6th March, 1855.
H. D. Dale, owner.
Hugh Quin, coxswain. 

Here is an account of the race:

The Murray Trade.

On the same day as the regatta there was launched the iron steamer Leichardt, imported with the Sturt, and put together in Port Adelaide for the Murray River trade. She was christened by Mrs. Acraman, wife of the late John Acraman, of Acraman, Main, Lindsay, & Co. On Sunday, November 16, 1856, an attempt to run the Sturt, which was built after the Leichardt, through the Murray mouth, caused the loss of two lives and an heroic display by Captain H. D. Dale, and the carpenter of the Sturt. Mr. Acraman, who was on board, wrote the following:—

Old Ships and Captains.

It seems such a pity that one or two of our merchants did not preserve their old "Lloyd's Registers" of shipping. I have hunted high and low for them, without avail. The Underwriters' Association has a copy for 1849; there is a copy for 1856 in the Public Library; and I have a copy for 1864. At Fletcher's Slip, Port Adelaide, there are copies for some of the fifties and sixties. In 1849 it was not compulsory for ship masters and mates to have certificates of competency, but many men voluntarily passed, and the names of those who passed till May, 1849, are included in "Lloyd's Register" of that date. Some men of 20 had passed for master; others were over 40 before they passed. In the list is Henry David Dale, who passed for master when he was 24. There are very few names of ship masters known in Port Adelaide, then or thereafter, in "Lloyd's" of 1849.

Old Portonians will remember the Firefly cutter, built by Mr. Cruikshank in Port Adelaide and launched January 22, 1855. My notes show that the Firefly cutter, H D. Dale master, arrived February 1, 1860, from King George's Sound, Cheynes Beach, and St Peter's Island. I never heard of the two latter. On June 4, 1853, the steamer Lady Augusta, 19 tons, Captain William Davidson, in ballast, sailed from Sydney for the Murray River. Captain Davidson was well known in Port Adelaide in the schooner Hawk, brought here in the forties from London by G. W. Brown, who was buried in Alberton Cemetery, August 1, 1877, in the grave he had made years before. 

After 1853 Captain Davidson was master of the barque Omagh for years and of the paddle steamer Goolwa, built for Captain Parfitt, late of the P. & O. service, Philip Levi, and others for the Port Augusta trader She was a failure for this trade. Her large deck-house was taken off, and, she was used as a tug in Port Adelaide, but could not compete with the less powerful, but more handy Eleanor, and was sold to J. & A. Brown, of Newcastle. Captain Davidson bought the small brig Emily Smith, and was drowned with his second wife, family, and crew, except the cook, who escaped, when the Emily Smith was wrecked on Kangaroo Island. 

Miss Dora Davidson, now of Port Adelaide, was on board the Lady Augusta when she went through the Murray mouth, and was the first white woman to enter the Murray from seaward, and the Lady Augusta was the first steamer to do so. The first Murray steamers were in several cases failures. The Leichardt, Sturt, and Frances Cadell, iron steamers, were withdrawn, and sold to Java, New Zealand, or Queensland. The Gundagai, also an iron boat, was not a success. The Settler was sold to Queensland, and ran from, Ipswich to Brisbane for years. The Moolgewanke, an iron steamer, was put on the trade from Port Adelaide to Port Gawler, Captain Sam Wilson, afterwards captain of Block 14, Broken Hill, being in command. The wooden boats built on the Murray seemed to be the most successful. Many of them used to be brought to Port Adelaide with their barges during the wheat seasons and low rivers of the early seventies.

I can remember the Albury, of Johnston and Murphy's line, running excursions to the Galatea man-of-war, about 1868. The incursion of freshwater sailors into Port Adelaide was not relished by the saltwater sailors, though some of the river men were saltwater-bred; Captain A. C. Sunman, for example, who had been in P. & O. employ. "Give her a stroke sideways," was the joke I have heard hurled at Captain Johnston when berthing the Albury alongside the wharf. 

Artemus Ward wrote:—"The captains of the steamers on the Upper Ohio put on a heap of airs, but they have not tasted salt water since they were children, when their mothers gave them some to kill the worms." For three or four years I forget, from Port Adelaide to The Goolwa, South, and another steamer whose name I forget, from Port Adelaide to the Goolwa, via Ports Victor and Elliot. Acraman, Main. & Co.'s Kennedy and Culgoa, with their barges, carried wheat from Port Wakefield in the seventies, when ships of 1,000 tons could not load down to their marks in Port Adelaide, and had to finish at the Semaphore. T

here was a nice little Murray River boat—the Jolly Miller was her name, I think—whose engines did not work direct, but drove a pinion, which drove a larger cogwheel. The stern wheel boat Lady Daly was in Port Adelaide, and was built there, I fancy. A. Graham, of The Goolwa, was a shipbuilder, and built the screw steamer Napier, but she was not a success. Potts, of Wellington, built the cutter Swallow, which traded from Port Adelaide for years, and was sold to Melbourne. Curly-headed Lewis was master of the Swallow for some time, and left her for the Prima Donna ketch, which was lost with all hands.